The largest sheet metal apprenticeship program in the country needed a brand built from strategy up, with the full suite of materials to put it into the field immediately. This is the most comprehensive trades branding project Fairbuilt has been part of.
Los Angeles, CA
Brand Identity
Second Story Marketing Group
The Southern California Sheet Metal Apprenticeship program is one of the largest training programs of its kind in the country. With a broad geographic reach, a significant number of active apprentices, and deep ties to the construction industry across Southern California, it operates at a scale that required a brand capable of holding up across a wide range of audiences and applications.
Second Story Marketing Group brought Fairbuilt in to lead the brand strategy and identity work, with SSMG handling client relationships and copywriting. The scope of this engagement made it one of the most significant collaborative projects either team had taken on in the trades space.
The engagement started with an in-person brand and marketing strategy session facilitated by Fairbuilt with the program's leadership team. That session worked through positioning, target audience priorities, and how the program needed to present itself differently to prospective apprentices, industry partners, and community organizations. The strategic output from that session became the foundation everything else was built on.
From the strategy, Fairbuilt developed a complete brand identity. Logo system, color palette, typography, and visual language designed to communicate professionalism and career value to a young, diverse Southern California audience. SSMG developed the copywriting that went into each piece.
The material rollout was extensive. Multiple fliers and brochures for different recruitment contexts. Business cards and stationery for program staff. Career fair table setup including display systems and banners. Truck wrap concepts for program vehicles. Social media templates. Website design concepts establishing the full visual direction for the program's digital presence, with development to follow separately.
This project is one of the most comprehensive trades branding engagement in Fairbuilt's portfolio and one of the strongest examples of what a full strategy-through-materials buildout looks like for a training organization. The program came away with a brand system and a complete set of materials ready to deploy across every channel where it recruits, from a community college career fair to the side of a truck.
The project has directly contributed to strong credibility in the sheet metal training space.
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